This was the only time “Box of Rain” was performed by the aggregation heard on the album, American Beauty, consisting of Phil Lesh (acoustic gtr/lead vocals), Jerry Garcia, (acoustic piano/backing vocals), Bob Weir (backing vocals), Bill Kreutzman (drums), David Nelson of NRPS (electric guitar), Dave Torbert of NRPS (electric bass). Mickey Hart, who was not on the album version, played percussion, possibly claves. This according to Gary Lambert, who was in the audience, as told in an interview on The Good Ol’ Grateful Deadcast posted on 10/01/2020 (https://overcast.fm/+eK1hqp9s4 50:18)

Very well-played & well-recorded acoustic Dead set, and good if you like the New Riders; the Dead's electric set is too clouded by the recording to tell how good it is.

It is not just you! Both Box and Dancin' start on an A maj chord so that is why they sound similar. Box of Rain is more complex tune chordwise, but they both start similarly. Dancin' goes from A maj to G maj and repeats, while Box starts on a vamp over an A maj chord.

My rating has more to do with sound quality than anything else.

Thanks for the remastering SIRMick! I appreciate youre effort! Well I say yes this recording leaves a lot to be desired as you all can tell. Some parts are better than others. Nonetheless Im gonna go ahead and give it a 5 star rating for several reasons. Mainly because I think it deserves more than a 3 which seems to be the consensus.

First I just want to say let's keep things in perspective. This show happened almost 40 years ago and still is echoing through the universe loud and somewhat clear. That is fucking "Priceless" to me! Definately worth listening to! This show is really a unique antique and should be appreciated for its content and not its quality. And thanks to the archive this recording and many others should not deteriorate much further. So lets be Grateful! Long live the Digital Archive. Because without it we would still be trading rapidly fading copies of copies of copies of what may or may not have once been a good tape.

This recording is the exact reason for this Archive I think. So that many could hear what would forever be lost. Maybe it's just me, and don't get me wrong I love the crystal clear ring of a nice soundboard recording but these bad old audience recordings just speak to me. It's like listening to old jazz on vinyl. Yeah sometimes it sounds terrible compared to a studio cd recording but how should it sound? It's old!

There is an energy that is evident in this recording if you close your eyes and adjust your ears you can surely hear it. They were on it! (besides bobby fumbling words on Truckin but that is to be expected) The crowd was completely hypnotised! I mean when I heard the pick-up notes for Friend of the Devil, and Ripple I got the chills bad and again in Brokedown. The ooo's do do do harmonys in brokedown are some of the most moving Ive heard. Then Box of Rain. Chills!! There is a certain authenticity to this recording even if it sounds like you are in someones pocket. After hearing this recording I would kill to be in someones pocket at this show. The crowd couldn't help but clap along and feed energy back to the band. Something groovy was definately going on this night! Tracks 11-18 was a very unique set of music for the dead as far as I know. Very off the wall stuff.

The quality on Sugar Mag sounded like the Taper was in the bathroom so I did the same! I mean have you never missed a song at a show cause you just really had to go. But you were kickin yourself the whole time cause you could kinda make out what you were missin and it was good shit! I recomend you go to the bathroom, or get some munchies here 'cause there is some really amazing music to come!

Dark Star as previously stated is great. Stellar even! Raw and Wild! They build it up and bring it back just as natural as the song wants to. They were definately feeling it and it shows here! Big Time! They dont force it. They let it happen. I like how the crowd thinks it's over for a second and applauds, but really it's only just begun and slowly grows from the silence and the void and regains form and takes you on a little space oddessy trip and builds up into this collision of chaotic sound and drops off sure enough works its way around to a familliar tone and then a familiar tune and it grows right back into the raging Dark melody and the crowd erupts into applause. CHILLS!! Then they take it somewhere really jammy and hipity which sounds like another tune I cant put my finger on right now. Incredible jam. Drums are rocking here. Full energy! Classic Dead! Then it just fades away again and into a dark interlude. and right back into the main darkstar and onto a very energetic crowd involved St.Stephen.

What else is ther to say really? Oh yeah! Drums>Good Luvin'>Drums>Jam>Good Luvin' = Totally SICK! Somebody give this show a 5 with me!

Now I wonder if they played Box of rain at any other shows In '70 that aren't listed in deadbase. I really like this version !

Box of Rain the way it was meant to be! I echo the sentiments of others hoping for a SBD, but there is something quaint about this rickety recording. I admire the effort. From an era when we used to take cardboard and aluminum foil to make an antenna, just to get a snowy picture on channel 11 to watch Sherlock Holmes. The reception has improved over the years, but the content hasn't kept pace. The NRPS set and the electric Dead sound less muffled than the acoustic Dead set to me. 3 stars pretty much for historical value, by cracky!

No doubt that this is a great show (the Dark Star is especially nice), not as good as 9/19 but still great. Gotta love the early Box of Rain that is definitely better than its electric performances of the 70s, 80s, and 90s. However, is it just me, or does Box's intro sound just like the chord sequence for a Dancin' jam? If the Dead had arranged Box of Rain electrically in 1970, we just might have heard this unusual segue: Dancing in the Streets>Box of Rain>Dancing in the Streets. It would have been odd, given that the two songs were polar opposites in subject matter; the former about partying good times and the latter a lament of death and mortality. It would have worked, though.

The AUD recording is another matter. It's listenable, for sure, but I'm surprised that nobody mentioned the annoying high-pitched whine present throughout the entire show. It's not horrible, but it's distracting and in places is almost as loud as the instruments. In the text file, the guy says that Noise Reduction was applied. It certainly doesn't sound much like it.

shame this recording is so week, you can hear phil vocally strong, only wish they had played box more often back in 70 and 71, by the time they are doing it in 72 73, donna is just too dominant and the new faster electric style, just as with friend of the devil, doesnt have the same magic, guess one can only dream, And beg that a loud anbd clear soundboard version of this show falls out of someones attic some time soon, it would be valued. I agree with the above comments reguarding the qualtiy of this unpluged material.
thanks though for the music. 3 for historic value.

This IS the same source as the other version circulating. I spent a lot of time cleaning it up.

Although this is still a proverbial bitch to listen to by the standards of most people, I must say that the quality of this source is a little more palpitable than the other one; apparently this one is a couple of generations younger. You can _almost_ make out the pedal steel and piano on Box of Rain.

Nonetheless, this recording does feature one of THE BEST acoustic sets from 1970 and is also one of the most developed. When they started in December 1969, the acoustic sets pretty much just consisted of Garcia and Weir playing Workingman's material and old folk songs. Here, though, you get the whole band more or less (even Pigpen joins in on piano for the American Beauty material, which makes you wonder why he didn't play keys on that record) joined by Nelson and Marmaduke from the New Riders on a few numbers. Classic. Get it for this acoustic set alone; the decent incomplete electric set is just icing on the cake.

Ratings: 5+ (acoustic), 3 (electric), 2.5 (sound), 3 (overall)